When the Mighty Fall

I was in my apartment last week when a groan came from my roommate’s bedroom. He’s a Boston guy, born and raised, living in enemy territory. The source of his agony was a bases-clearing, three-run Orioles double that had just turned a one-run Red Sox lead into a 7-5 deficit. Terry Francona went to the bullpen. My roommate went to Twitter: “Sitting in the dark listening to Sox game angrily tossing a tennis ball.”

Few things about being a Boston sports fan have been especially groan-worthy over the past decade: “Four teams. Seven titles. Ten years.” That’s the cover line for the latest edition of ESPN the Magazine, its first-ever “Boston Issue.” So it’s not particularly surprising that the Red Sox ongoing collapse, and the attendant anxiety among Bostonians, has drawn near universal schadenfreude from opposing fans.

Another Massachusetts team, near-invincible in the first two weeks of the N.F.L. season, was the source of similar anti-rooting this weekend: the New England Patriots, who faced the Buffalo Bills. I watched the game at a Brooklyn sports bar packed with emigrants watching their hometown teams on different screens, but as Buffalo marched toward a winning field goal, all eyes were on that game. (Few were watching the simultaneous tiff, in overtime, between Minnesota and Detroit.) When time expired, the bar erupted. I left a few minutes later and walked past a man in a Bills jersey. Two passersby offered congratulations. He looked as if he’d just come from the birth of his first child. My roommate, watching elsewhere, texted: “I hate sports.”

Though Boston fans draw ire because they are viewed as particularly obnoxious, the truth is that, to fans of losing teams, fans of winning teams—any winning team—are all obnoxious. We like to see the top dogs take a hit. This year’s self-proclaimed “Dream Team,” the Philadelphia Eagles, lost to the Giants yesterday; even Jets fans at the bar greeted the Eagles’ second-straight loss with joyous applause. The night game featured the mighty Steelers and the mighty Colts: as the A.F.C.’s Super Bowl representative in five of the past six seasons (New England was the other), they had become sources of disdain for those of us who are fans of lesser teams.

Fans in Indianapolis would no doubt rather remain a source of envy than what they have become: a sympathy case. Aren’t football teams bigger than any individual part? Not, it seems, when one of those parts is Peyton Manning. The Colts lost by just a field goal last night, but oh-and-three is oh-and-three. Manning’s return to the field this season after neck surgery now seems unlikely. (Some manic back-tracking from Colts owner Jim Irsay this morning, via Twitter: “I didn’t say Peyton out 4season FOR SURE,keeping him on ActiveRoster n taking it month by month/Outside chance of return n December.”) Manning told the Indianapolis Star he was over his “woe is me” phase, though the rest of us have just entered our “woe is you” period. If we occasionally got mean-spirited pleasure in the rare moments when Manning struggled, now we just want him back.

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